Photos by Atiba Jefferson
Originally published in SLAM World Hoops 2010

With Yao Ming resting up for the coming season, the weight of Team China has been put squarely on Yi Jianlian’s shoulders this summer. The 7-footer was recently moved from Jersey to DC, and will be playing alongside John Wall & Co. in ’10-11. —Adam Figman

I’ll keep this short and sweet, as Team USA had already begun their scrimmage against the USA Select Team when the media entered the gym at the John Jay Criminal Justice gym.

-There was an emphasis on using the full-court press. With the plethora of quick, agile guards, Team USA should be able to disrupt and keep the pressure on the opposing guards looking to push the ball up the court. Russell Westbrook, Derrick Rose and Eric Gordon were prime examples of causing mayhem and forcing the Select Team to launch the ball down court where the likes of the lengthy Lamar Odom and Kevin Durant were waiting to intercept.

-This team will shoot the three ball. A lot. It’s scary to think a strategy of theirs might be to live and die behind the arc, but for most of the scrimmage yesterday, with the exception of some well-controlled drives to the bucket by Rose and Westbrook, Team USA was launching from down town. Durant, Stephen Curry, Rudy Gay and even Kevin Love, were putting them up, and hitting them for the most part. The shorter perimeter arc of the international game certainly helps things (FIBA: 20′ 6.1″ – NBA: 23′ 9″), although this shouldn’t be taken for granted. One cold streak against the up-tempo squads of Puerto Rico, Brazil or Spain could spell doom on the other end of the court. Long rebound, outlet and an easy layup – situations like these Team USA has to remember to hustle back on to defend.

-The scrimmages on Day 1 were four, 6-minute quarters. On Day 2, when the media entered the gym, they were finishing up their last two 10-minute quarters. A FIBA game is four, 10-minute periods, as opposed to the NBA’s four, 12-minute periods.

-Rajon Rondo missed practice due to a death in the family, and Danny Granger was out after injuring his ring finger during yesterday’s practice.

-Curry had a strong scrimmage. The 6-3 Warriors guard knocked down the open shots, pressured high up the court on defense and was aggressive on the offensive end, setting up plays for others:

“The lanes bigger, there’s a lot more space on the floor. Guys can sit in the lane, there’s no defensive three seconds. Big guys are always going to be down there if you go to the middle, which helps me, maybe I can shoot the three’s all day,” (facetiously).

On another note for Warriors fans, I asked him if he’s spoken with David Lee at all:

“Oh yeah, we’re pretty good friends right away. I think I’m gonna hang out with him this week. I think any time you add an All-Star with the talents he has to be able to pass, shoot, play the pick-and-roll game, rebound, defend – all those things we need at that position he’ll be able to come in and help right away.”

-The only other pure shooter on this squad, aside from Curry, is Eric Gordon. Here’s his take on his role on the team:

“I’d say mostly shooting and making three point shots, and playing really good defense and making steals. We (him and Stephen Curry) just got to do our job and makes baskets.”

-Jerry Colangelo on Team USA playing zone:

“It’s not gonna be a constant. It’s gonna be an in-and-out kind of a thing. More than anything else to get the offense off kilter. That’s how it should be used. That’s how the Europeans use it now.”

Day 3 should be a treat, as tonight kicks off the World Basketball Festival with a Team USA showcase at Radio City Music Hall. I hear Jay-Z is going to perform afterward…of course, I’ll have a post with all the details.

As the machine-generated fog pushed in, and as the ambient light in the cavernous Studio C faded to black, a single, solitary voice rang out: “Grew up in a town that is famous as the place of movie scenes…” Several members of the Boys and Girls Club of Harlem joined in and took to the stage singing “Empire State of Mind,” letting us hear it for New York, New York, New York. Later there would be breakdancers, drummers, even a psychedelic light show to make Roger Waters envious.

It was mid-June, and the eyes of the basketball world were focused on the NBA Finals, where the Lakers were sitting on a 2-1 lead over the Boston Celtics. But here at Pier 59 Studios at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan, a multi-media explosion was being staged by Nike and USA Basketball to momentarily fast-forward the focus to later this summer. After the Finals and the impending free agent rodeo, basketball would return with a bang, beginning with the World Basketball Festival and continuing through the World Championships in Turkey. And on this day, Kevin Durant and Yi Jianlian had been invited to the summer kickoff event to rep for the USA and China.

For Durant, the biggest moment of the day wasn’t the lights or the smoke or the music; instead, it was something Colangelo said almost in passing. When pressed about who would be on the USA Basketball roster this summer, Colangelo demurred, noting that it was too early to bank on anyone. Except, he noted, for Kevin Durant. Kevin Durant would definitely be on the team.

“I was surprised,” KD said later. “When [Colangelo] said it I was like, What?! I knew I had a chance to make it, with all the work I’d put in the last three years, and playing with USA Basketball. But for them to say that was kind of like icing on the cake.”

At just 21 years old, Kevin Durant has already been Rookie of the Year, an All-Star, averaged over 30 ppg for a season, won an NBA scoring title, and most importantly to Durant, he’s made the Oklahoma City Thunder a team to be reckoned with in the West. With a newly signed contract extension worth a reported $85 million, next up for KD is his chance to rock the red, white and blue this summer during the World Basketball Festival and the World Championships. And it’s safe to say Kevin Durant is ready to go.

SLAM: How excited were you to see that USA uniform with DURANT on the back?KD: I was very excited. I wanted to take it home but they told me I had to leave it here. It’s a dream come true for me to be a part of something like this. I’m so blessed, and I have to continue to be thankful for it and continue to keep working.

SLAM:Are you looking forward to playing the exhibition game outside in the middle of Times Square?KD: That’s the craziest part. I grew up playing outside, but to play outside in one of the most famous places in the world, that’s going to be big time. I think playing outside made me into the fierce competitor I am today. Because you never want to fall on the ground, of course, because that hurts. And you never want to lose because you have to leave the court. You never want to be the guy who brings his basketball and has them say, ‘Let me use your basketball and you go sit on the side.’ So I didn’t want to be one of those guys. I always worked at my game, and when I got out there I started to get mean. That’s how I developed into the player I am today. That’s why I always go back in the summer, to hone that mean streak that I have. I think tomorrow I’m going to play outside as well. I’m just trying to work on my game.

SLAM:Is there anything specifically you’ve been working on?KD: Every day I work on my jump shot, that’s one thing that gets me through this League. I’ve been in the weight room, getting stronger. You may not see it, but I’m getting stronger. My overall game, I don’t just work on one thing. I try to get better at everything, try to improve my overall game.

SLAM:What sort of ball did you mostly play when growing up?KD: A lot of one-on-one, full-court, one-on-one, simulating. I was Michael Jordan a couple of times, Vince Carter. I think that really did help. Because I would go back and watch what those guys do, and try to do it the next day when I played one-on-one with my friends. Basically I was watching film and I was learning. Slowly but surely, each player I was watching, I was taking pieces from their game.

SLAM: What did you learn from losing in the Playoffs this season? KD: No matter what—how bad you’re shooting, how many turnovers you have—you just have to keep playing because every possession counts. Down 20 or 10 or 5, you have to keep playing, you have to play through it and do whatever it takes for your team to win. Trying to get stats, all that stuff is out the door. It’s all about winning basketball games, ugly or pretty, it doesn’t matter.

SLAM:You went to camp with USA Basketball before, right?KD: It was three years ago, right before my rookie season. I got cut from the team out in Vegas, me and Nick Collison actually. It was tough to watch them play after I got cut. Maybe I could’ve done a little more to convince them I should’ve been on the team, but I had to wait my turn. I was cool with that.

SLAM:Could you accept that the guys who made the team were better than you?KD: No. I’m so competitive, I was upset. Watching the Olympics, I was upset, because I wanted to be there. But that fueled me. I got upset watching the Finals. I got upset watching the Olympics in ‘08. I don’t know why.

SLAM:Because you felt like you belonged there?KD: Yeah, I think I should be there. I’m selfish, I guess. I want to be the guy that’s helping my team win a championship or helping my team win a gold medal. But sometimes it doesn’t work like that.

SLAM: What did they ask you to improve upon when they cut you? KD: They just told me to get older. They thought I had a good camp, but seniority is…those guys made the team, and I was OK with that. I knew I had to wait my turn, and it’s been like that for a while. Ever since I was growing up I had to wait my turn, and there’s no difference here. The time has come, I guess.

This is when it started. I just returned to college to finish up my final semester of senior year. Snowmaggedon was blasting through the northeast, leaving my housemates and I restricted to our off-campus house and devastatingly vulnerable to boredom.

To help pass the time, doing myself a favor and passing on the alcohol, I started researching countries to backpack through as an all too typical post-grad adventure. I’m not one for just sightseeing and partying, as ridiculously blackout as that may sound. If there was a way for me to get some work in, I was all for it.

As snow continued to pound the tri-state, my travel bug bit harder and harder at my complacency. There’s only so much shoveling, snow activities and coffee one person can handle during a blizzard. For an entire day, I nearly blinded myself searching through countless travel websites, until I finally stumbled upon this:

Perfect. So on that Tuesday afternoon, I emailed Ben the E-I-C asking about SLAM’s plan to cover the event and how I could get involved.

Six months later, and I have a media credential for the WBC, a plane ticket to Turkey and a hotel reservation in Istanbul.

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Six months later, the World Hoops 2010 issue is here with Kevin Durant gracing the cover (on newsstands this coming week in New York City). Throughout the season and Playoffs, the gold medal winning “Redeem Team” had wavered about reppin’ USA for the World’s. One man who didn’t was the increasingly popular Durant. The Thunder superstar, who was cut from that ’08 team as a 19-year-old rookie, had as great a shot as anyone to make Jerry Colangelo’s and Coach K’s squad. He was coming off a fantastic season, averaging 30.1 ppg while pushing the Lakers to a six-game first round series.

With a little help from Nike and their World Basketball Festival announcement in mid-June, Durant was a lock for the team (according to Colangelo that afternoon) and consequently our cover. As I said then, “we ducked in to a photo shoot where our man Atiba was ready to photo Durant and Yi.”

What you see is the result of that shoot. A respectful, confident young man who is growing into the face of Team USA and its number one option on offense. I’ll admit, we got a little fortunate when the free agency fiasco roared its ugly head and the complete contrast was KD simply relaying on Twitter he had signed an extension with OKC. Simple and to the point. Everything the free agency circus wasn’t.

Besides the Durant cover story, which Norman MacLean, I mean Lang, obviously kills, I try my hand at my first multiple-page feature about Yi Jianlian and his varying degrees of success with Team China and the NBA. I also penned the four group, 24 team preview for the World’s. It includes some history, what to expect and who to look for in Turkey. There are also stories on Carlos Arroyo, Team USA history (an Old School by Michael Bradley at that), and in-depth coverage of the upcoming World Basketball Festival in New York City about two weeks from now. And of course, there are spreads of the new Nike Hyper Elite Uniforms; fresh Nike, Converse and Jordan kicks for 2010; and a lot more apparel reflective of the impending World’s. Everything you will need to know in preparation for the World Basketball Festival and World Basketball Championship is in the pages of this issue. Enjoy.

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As for me, I’ll be situated in Istanbul primarily covering Team USA in Group B at the Abdi Ipekci Spor Salonu arena (there are four different cities/venues for the group stages) and then when the knock-out rounds begin and the entire Championship shifts to Istanbul at the Sinan Erdem Dom. And of course, I’ll have a duffel bag full of this issue, reppin’ SLAM the best way I can.